About Philosophy Chapter 2

Front 1

Who started the method of doubt philosophical 'movement'?

Back 1

Rene Descartes, a Frenchman born in 1596.

Front 2

What work marks the beginning of modern philosophy? Wro wrote it? When?

Back 2

'Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes, published in 1641.

Front 3

Which three thinkers of the seventeenth century created what we know today as modern science?

Back 3

the German Gottfried Liebnitz, Englishman Issac Newton and Frenchman Rene Descartes

Front 4

What did a series of three dreams that Descartes had lead him to devote his life to?

Back 4

Establishing a new, unified theory of the universe base upon mathematics - what is known today as mathematical physics

Front 5

What four rules did Descartes lay out in his "discourse on method" which he claimed were sufficient to fuide the mind in whatever inquiry it might undertake?

Back 5

1. accept nothing as true unless you have evidence that it is certain
2. divide to conquer a problem
3. begin with simple, move to complex
4. examine everything to avoid omission

Front 6

What is Descartes method of problem solving as set out in his "discourse on method" meant to be used for?

Back 6

It is meant to be used by a person who does not yet know anything but is trying by the use of his or her intelligence to discover something.

Front 7

What is Descartes method a method of?

Back 7

doubt - the first step is to 'throw-out' anything for which you don't have direct, clear, unmistakeably clear, certain evidence of

Front 8

What is Descartes' first mediation about?

Back 8

Sciences: He offers the reasons why we can doubt all things in general, and particularly material objects, at least as long as we do not have other foundations for the sciences

Front 9

What is Descartes' second meditation about?

Back 9

Rules on Method: (four rules)
1. never accept anything as true unless evidence it is certain
2. divide to conquer a problem
3. move from simple tasks to more complex ones
4. examine everything to avoid ommission

Front 10

What is Descartes' third meditation about?

Back 10

Moral Rules: (4 maxims)
1. obey laws and customs of his country and religion - moderate decision making
2. firm and determined in actions - not indecisive
3. always seek to conquer myself rather than fortune - examine all options
4. review all occupations possible in this life to choose which is best - you can't learn from an occupation which you do not like

Front 11

What is Descartes' fourth meditation about?

Back 11

Proof of the existence of God - you know that you are here because you can think, you were put here by something greater than yourself, some sort of superior being; God. There is a concept of perfection, so there must be a God.

Front 12

What is Descartes' fifth meditation about?

Back 12

Physics: Laws of nature follow from God. We each have a 'trademark' imprinted within us by God. God is perfect, trandemark is to be made in image and likeness of God, but we have free will. Body can be separate from soul - two different realms. We have the ability to reason. Soul is not matter, it cannot be sensed, so it could only be implanted in us by a higher being.

Front 13

What is Descartes' sixth meditation about?

Back 13

The Study of Nature: everything we know is nothing compared to what we don't know, so learn and take risks - make decisions.

Front 14

What is the heart of the 'epistemological turn'?

Back 14

A reversal of the two basic questions; from the ancient pre-socratic philosophers up to the time of Descartes, philosophers put questions about what exists, about the nature of the universe, before questions about what I can know to exist, what I can know the nature of the universe to be. Philosophers considered questions of 'being' to take precedence over questions of 'knowing'.

Front 15

How would one sum up philosophy prior to Descartes?

Back 15

Metaphysics took precedence over epistemology

Front 16

What did Descartes two methods do for the fundamental questions of philosophy?

Back 16

His method of inquiry and the method of doubt had the effect of reversing the order of precedence of the two questions; he made epistemology take precedence over metaphysics.

Front 17

What does Descartes' method of inquiry tell us?

Back 17

To adobt the view of someone who is ignorant and trying to learn, rather than the point of view of someone who knows something and is trying to explain it. It also teaches us to take questions in an orderly manner and not moving on to the next question before solving the first.

Front 18

What does Descartes' method of doubt say?

Back 18

Descartes insists that the standard of proof is absolute certainty - which is almost impossible -- even the courts don't require absolute certainty - just proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Front 19

What is Epistemological Skepticism?

Back 19

The doctrine that no adequate justification can be given for any of our beliefs about the world, not even for the apparently rock-solid beliefs that there is a physical world, that I have a body, etc...

Front 20

What is the aim of Epistemological Skepticism?

Back 20

To focus our attention on the relationship between our beliefs and their justification, not acually to get us to stop believing.

Front 21

What is the latin phrase that Descartes used to prove his own existence?

Back 21

Cogito, ergo sum

Front 22

What does "Cogito, ergo sum" (Descartes) mean?

Back 22

"I think, therefore I am"

Front 23

What has Descartes' proof of his own existence come to be known as?

Back 23

The Cogito Argument.

Front 24

What does "Cogito, ergo sum" really mean (not I think therefore I am)?

Back 24

"The proposition, I exist, is necessarily true each time I pronounce it."

Front 25

What is the significance of the 'real' meaning of "Cogito, ergo sum"?

Back 25

Pronouncing, or asserting the proposition is key because it is the asserting that guarantees its truth. If the proposition is being asserted, then someone must be doing the asserting, and if I am asserting it, then that someone must be me.

Front 26

What is the limitation of Descartes' Cogito Argument?

Back 26

It only proves his existence to him; it does not prove his existence to anyone else. No one can use the argument to prove anyone else's existence.

Front 27

What are the two consequences of the fact that the Cogito Argument only proves your existence to yourself?

Back 27

1. It drives each philosopher into the position of solipsism.
2. It turns the attention of philosophers away from the objects of knowledge, the things that we know about and toward the subject of knowledge, the mind that does the knowing.

Front 28

What is solipsism?

Back 28

Literally, the belief that I am the only person in the universe. An extreme form of epistemological skepticism that refuses to acknowledge the existence of anything other than my own mind.

Front 29

What parts of Descartes' philosophy did the Continental rationalists agree with?

Back 29

1. accepted his demand for certainty
2. agreed that logic and math were the basis for all true knowledge
3. sought to discover ways in which the sciences and metaphysics could be as certain as syllogism and geometry
4. sought proofs of the existence of God
5. claimed that all valid knowledge must rest upon the operations of reason

Front 30

What parts of Descartes' philosophy did the British empiricists agree with?

Back 30

they accepted Descartes' demand for certainty, but argued that nothing could really meet that demand

Front 31

Who was the most brilliant and thoroughgoing of the empiricists? How did he refute Descartes?

Back 31

David Hume - who through a series of proofs that neither the theorems of science nor the beliefs of common sense could possibly qualify as knowledge when measured against Descartes' standard of certainty

Front 32

How did the empiricists challenge the rationalists' reliance upon reasoning as the sole source of knowledge?

Back 32

John Locke in his "essay concerning the human understanding" and then Humen in "a treatise of human nature" insistes that all the ideas in the human mind must ultimately be derived form the sights, sounds, smells, fells and tastes of our sense organs. Reason could do no more that rearrange and sort the materials provided to the mind by sensation.

Front 33

What were Descartes' two tests of certainty?

Back 33

1. clearness
2. distinctness

Front 34

What did Gottfried Liebniz offer as logical criteria of truth and certainty?

Back 34

All truths could be divided into two sorts; triuths that can be known merely by application of a fundamental principle of logic - the law of contradiction (along with which goes the law of the excluded middle) and truths that cannot be certified by laws of logic are known as truths of fact - which include most of what we ordinarilly call knowledge. To establish either truth, we must appeal to the principle of sufficient reason.

Front 35

What is the law of contradiction?

Back 35

a statement and its contradictory cannot both be true

Front 36

What is the law of the excluded middle?

Back 36

for any statement, either it is true or else its negation is true, both cannot be true.

Front 37

What did Leibniz say was the only way to certify truths of fact?

Back 37

By indirect appeal to God.

Front 38

What did Locke suggest about claims of knowledge?

Back 38

instead of examining them directly, ask from what source we derive the ideas which we use in stating these knowledge claims. He argued that if our claims of knowledge made any sense at all, then they must correspond to ideas in our mind otherwise you would not be asserting anything at all.

Front 39

What is the mind when we are first born according to John Locke in his "essay concerning human understanding"?

Back 39

A tabula rasa - blank tablet.

Front 40

What is Locke claiming when he states that we all are born with a mind that is a Tabula Rasa?

Back 40

The mind comes into life blank, and is written on by experience. He was arguing against the widely held view that the mind comes to experience with ideas that are built into it.

Front 41

What does Locke claim that two philosophers must do before they can even argue about the existence of God?

Back 41

they must show that their wrds have meaning which means showing that the words correspond to ideas that have been derived from the senses.

Front 42

Why is Locke's claim of the Tabula Rasa a double-edged sword?

Back 42

If the theory proves that we do not even have a coheret idea of God, then one possible conclusion is that all of our talk about God is nonsense. But another possible claim is that since his theory implies such a ridiculous notion, it must be false.

Front 43

Who was the empiricist who carried Locke's strategy to its logical conclusion?

Back 43

David Hume who conceived a plan of writing a full-scale theory of the human mind.

Front 44

Into what two categories did Hume divide all the perceptions of the human mind?

Back 44

Impressions and Ideas

Front 45

Who was George Berkeley?

Back 45

An Irish philosopher who is known as a defender of 'idealism' which is the idea that the only things that can be known to exist are human minds, the ideas in these minds, and God.

Front 46

What philosophical view does idealism oppose? Name a follower of this opposing idea.

Back 46

Materialism - Hobbes

Front 47

What are three main points in Hume's "Treatise on human nature"?

Back 47

1. his adoption of the "white paper" theory
2. What is sometimes called the copy theory of ideas; the notion that all of our ideas are either striaght copies of sense impressions or combination and rearrangements of copies of sense impressions.
3. Hume has an 'atomic' theory of the contents of the mind; he conceives of the mind as containing little indivisible 'atomic' bits of information, plus individual copies of those bits of sensation and what we might call 'molecular' combinations of atomic sensations.

Front 48

What are two conclusions of Hume's atomic theory of the contents of the mind?

Back 48

1. since all the contents of the mind can be divided into atomic units - we can always distinguish one unit from another
2. the mind has the power to 'separate' two units of sensation from one another by imagining one away while keeping the other in mind

Front 49

What two principles does Hume use to summarize his atomic theory of the contents of the mind?

Back 49

1. whatever objects are diffferent are distinguishable
2. whatever bjects are distinguishable are separate by thought and imagination

Front 50

What does Hume use the two principles that summarize his atomic theory of the contents of the mind to do?

Back 50

To construct an argument that wipes out metaphysics, all natural science and just about all of our commonsense beliefs about the world.

Front 51

What did Immanuel Kant adopt as the starting point of all philosophy instead of Descartes' "I think"?

Back 51

"I am conscious"

Front 52

What is the significance of Kant's "I am conscious" starting point?

Back 52

My consciousness has a certain basic structire or charcteristic, it is unified into a single consiousness. All the thoughts, impressions, beliefs, expectations, hopes and doubts that I have are MY thoughts and so on.

Front 53

What premise did Kant state in his "Critique of Pure Reason"?

Back 53

"It must be possible for he "I think" to accompany all my representations" which was his way of saying that all of the contents of my consciousness are bound up in a unity of consciousness.

Front 54

What is a unity of conciousness?

Back 54

A phrase invented by Kant to describe the fact that the thoughts and perceptions of any given mind are bound together in a unity by being all contained in one conciousness. He claimed that this fact could only be explained by postulating a fundamental mental activity of holding together or synthesizing these thoughts and perceptions.

Front 55

What does Kant say the only way to think all of one's thoughts as unified in a sinfle consciousness is?

Back 55

By following the rules of categories for holding thoughts together.

Front 56

What does Kant say about these categories for holding thoughts together?

Back 56

The categories are innate in the human mind; we cannot change them.

Front 57

What are some examples of these categories for holding thoughts together according to Kant?

Back 57

Substance, cause and effect, unity, plurality, possibility, necessity and reality

Front 58

How did Kant differ from other philosophers such as Locke, Hume and other critics of Descaretes' rationalistic philosophy?

Back 58

Locke, Hume and other critics of rationalism accepted Descartes' starting point of "I think, therefore I am" whereas Kant refuted this claim and turned the whole argument around.

Front 59

In what way did Kant deny Descartes' first premise?

Back 59

Kant stated - I cannot know the contents of my own mind unless I first unify them into a single consciousness.

Front 60

What do rationalists rely on as the sole source of knowledge?

Back 60

reason

Front 61

What do empiricists rely on as the sole source of knowledge?

Back 61

experience

Front 62

What, other than the source of knowledge, did the empiricists and rationalists argue about?

Back 62

justification of knowledge - what justifies my claim that I know something is the case?

Front 63

What is foundationalism?

Back 63

In epistemology - the view that knowlesge must be viewed as a pyramid mde up of building blocks the upper levels of which rest upon a solid foundation which itself is basic and needs no support.

Front 64

What was Descartes' foundation? Locke's?

Back 64

Descartes' foundation of knowledge was his Cogito argument. Locke's foundation was the ideas derived from sensation and reflection; experience.

Front 65

What is coherentism?

Back 65

The belief that a body of beliefs may be known without an underlying foundation of certainty, but rather in virtue of the mutual support provided by the various parts.

Front 66

What is pragmatism?

Back 66

A distinctively American approach to philosophy. A practice-oriented philosophy where the ultimate test of the truth of an idea is its usefulness in practice - the truth of a claim is borne out in the way it works out in practice.

Front 67

Name some pragmatists.

Back 67

1.Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914), a mathematician
2. William James (1842-1910) a psychologist
3. John Dewey (1859-1952), an educator
4. George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), a sociologist

Front 68

Name 2 rationalists.

Back 68

1. Rene Descartes
2. Leibniz

Front 69

Name 3 British empiricists.

Back 69

1. John Locke
2. George Berkeley
3. David Hume

Front 70

Who was the most radical of the empiricists?

Back 70

David Hume - whose "A Treatise of Human Nature" (published 1739-40) raised skeptical doubts about even the unity and existence of the self.

Front 71

What was Immanuel Kant's great work?

Back 71

The "Critique of Pure Reason" which was published in 1781.

Front 72

How did Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" transform philosophy?

Back 72

It changed our understanding of knowledge, consciousness, the self, and the relation between what we know and the way things are.

Front 73

How did Kant argue the knowledge of reality?

Back 73

He used the distinction between appearance and reality to argue that we in fact never have knowledge of reality but only of things as they appear to us, and that the mind itself contributes the form in which we know appearances.

Front 74

What is perhaps Kant's most famous statement?

Back 74

"The mind is itself the lawgiver to nature"